The Face of Mourning
by Joannawrites
Summary: She didn't think that she loved him; she just thought maybe she would have liked to. CJ's immediate reaction to Simon Donovan's exit from the series. She'll get by with some help from friends.


The Face of Mourning By Joanna  
  
*Summary: And CJ was a little surprised to learn, maybe for the first time, that Toby Ziegler's true eloquence was not in his words but in his heart.  
  
*Spoilers: Everything through the end of Season 3. (Easier to say that than to actually LOOK for possible spoilers, you know?)  
  
*Disclaimer: These characters, are of course, the property of Aaron Sorkin, and arguably, of the people who play them so well. I'm jealous of all of them. But I'm inspired by them too.  
  
*Category: Post-episode, Posse Comitatus. The night after Simon Donovan is so heinously dealt with, picking up right where the finale left us.  
  
*Feedback: is one of the reasons why. I welcome suggestions and comments. But no angry faxes please. Gliterin2000@yahoo.com  
  
************ Even as she stood before Ron Butterfield and told him there was a mistake, she knew there wasn't. She wasn't surprised because it was exactly the kind of man he was. Or rather, had been. What she was maybe surprised about was that she so quickly thought of him in the past tense. She could feel his absence in places that she'd never really been aware of before now as she reeled down the streets of New York, all loose limbed forward motion, like a drunken crane.  
  
She was surrounded by millions of people, and she'd never been more alone.  
  
For the past weeks he'd annoyed her and he'd moved her, and in death, he still did both. He annoyed her because he'd broken an implicit promise he'd made to her. It had been there in his eyes after she'd kissed him, hours ago.  
  
He moved her because she'd seen the depths of another promise. A promise he'd made her on another day. In their first meeting. The promise that if she was dead, chances were he'd be too. But he hadn't told her that he might die and it might have nothing to do with her. He hadn't prepared her for that.  
  
The wind was tearing at her, ripping at her wrap and at the black Vera Wang he'd admitted watching her try on. She could feel gusts moving against her, but she was so far past physical discomfort that she didn't notice the ice in the blasts. Not when ice water ran in her veins.  
  
Her shoulder contacted something solid as she pushed forward blindly and the impact, paired with her weakened knees, nearly spun her around and into the happy couple hurrying by her.  
  
And something about that touch, that contact, seemed to send her plunging into the reality that he wasn't there to walk beside her, or in front of her in crowded places, any more.  
  
She couldn't go any further. Not one step more. Or rather she could have, but she just didn't want to. It didn't matter because she hadn't known where she was going in the first place. To 98th and Broadway to see for herself what she'd already accepted? Had that been her subconscious destination? Sixty blocks in heels? Like a moth to a flame or better yet, a reporter to a scandal. And why did she think that might help? What strange part of her needed to see him as he would be now, brought low and bleeding?  
  
Bitterness rose sour in the back of her throat as she wondered what she'd expected to do. Lay a hand on his cheek, say something meaningful to his corpse? It wasn't her style.  
  
Or maybe to shake the life back into him? To do violence to him for doing this to her? When he was supposed to be doing paperwork? That was more her speed.  
  
She could hear far under the rushing of cars on wet streets and the rise and fall of voices and measured footsteps all around her, the unrelenting hum of the neon signs hung at least twenty feet over her head. They pulsed with a bright cheerfulness that had never been so alien to her.  
  
She couldn't understand why things seemed both so dull and vibrantly, painfully clear. For the world, she couldn't lift her hand to answer her incessantly ringing phone. And yet she noticed each raindrop pooling on the street around her foolishly expensive shoes and reflecting the bloody red of the buzzing sign above. The light seemed to sear into her retinas and burn scars on her eyelids, so that when she closed them all she could see was red.  
  
It was as if the world had tilted violently, spun hard, and somehow she'd come apart from herself. She was everywhere else but inside her own shuddering frame.  
  
She blamed it on the Secret Service. For catching that sick man whose fault this all really was. Simon Donovan would not have been two steps from her elbow all this night if they'd just not been so damn effective at catching him a state line away, before he ever had a chance to hurt her. Simon had wandered into a florescent-lit blood bath while she watched one Henry after another singing. And enjoyed doing it.  
  
And she hated the Secret Service for recruiting fucking John Wayne heroes who put themselves so willingly in danger. Because she knew the depths of their dedication so much that it didn't surprise her that he'd tried to protect someone he didn't know and had died doing it, and because of that she was forced to grieve for him.  
  
And she didn't know if she knew how to stop grieving for him now.  
  
For all these reasons, she hated the Secret Service, but none of them did anything to bring Simon Donovan back to her.  
  
She was surprised at her possessiveness. She felt like he was hers and that he'd been taken from her and no one else. Never mind young Anthony. Never mind his other family and friends that she'd never really gotten around to asking about because she'd been too busy being indignant of his protection. Indignant because she was independent and smart and strong and all of those things hadn't been enough in themselves to keep her from needing him. Never mind what his death would mean to the other people in his life though, because she had needed him. Not for his gun. Because he'd stood toe to toe with her and he'd stolen her spark plug and he was always there, and because he was hers.  
  
She wasn't sure what she'd planned on doing with him. All she knew was that a few hours ago there had been the possibility of something good. She'd felt something that she hadn't felt in so long that she couldn't recall if she'd ever felt it before, and she'd been excited. Excited by what might be happening between her and this man. This man that was almost the opposite of what she would have expected, but had turned out to be exactly what she thought she wanted.  
  
She'd never know.  
  
She didn't hold any grand notions that she'd loved him. She'd liked him more than she'd liked anyone in quite awhile, and she'd respected him, and she'd been charmed by him, but she hadn't loved him. She just thought maybe she would have liked to.  
  
"CJ, you aren't answering your phone. We were worried about you."  
  
She looked up slowly from the neon puddles around her toes, her eyes traveling over the identically clad legs and torsos of Sam and Toby, who stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with matching expressions on their faces. Sam held his cell in his hand; hers was still ringing. Under hers, she could hear the lonely reply of Sam's phone, still trying to reach her.  
  
Their faces and their attire were so much alike that her heart strove to batten down everything else as her tongue moved around a quip about them being Cheech and Chong, Simon and Garfunkel, Batman and Robin.  
  
But the ache in her chest wouldn't die quite so easily as Donovan had, and in the end she just stared at them with what she hoped were blank, empty eyes, because she didn't think she could stand for either one of them to know how weak she was just now.  
  
"Well, I gotta tell you, there are a lot of people worried about you. You're soaking wet, CJ." Sam again. She hadn't really noticed that she was wet. Or that it was raining. "You all right?" he asked, rather stupidly, when she continued to stare at them.  
  
Toby was just standing there with a look he got when he was deep in thought about what words should come out of the President's mouth next.  
  
CJ still didn't speak. She had absolutely not one thing to say. She was sure on another day there would be several snide comments immediately following that thought, had she voiced it aloud. But for today, there was just her and her silence and she didn't care that she was worrying Sam and Toby.  
  
It was a stand off of sorts for a moment and finally Toby's jaw stopped working and he shrugged out of his overcoat, placing it around her shoulders in a gentlemanly gesture that she might have scoffed at. She could have at least have made some remark about how short the coat was on her to cover up any comfort she found in the gesture. She was a feminist after all.  
  
Toby took her elbow and said not one word as he tugged her to her feet. She followed because she didn't have anything left to resist with, and her phone silenced as Sam pocketed his.  
  
The sudden quiet surprised her, and she wondered just how long her ears had been filled with the ringing.  
  
Toby walked with her. They were both quiet, but they were not uneasy in the quiet itself. CJ knew, somewhere over the layers of her numbness, that in contrast, the silence was killing Sam. He was keeping pace at her other elbow, his mouth working soundlessly. She could hear his sudden intake of breath as he started to say several somethings, thought the better of them, and shut up.  
  
Silence wasn't Sam's natural inclination. Nervous chatter was more his style at a time like this, and CJ thought that she couldn't have stood it right now, and was grateful for Toby's brooding presence at her other side. Robin following Batman's lead.  
  
For awhile anyway. Finally Sam could no longer live with it and began explaining how they were staying in town for a few extra hours, and they all had hotel rooms at their disposal. She could warm up and dry off. He said something about a meeting between President Bartlet and the Archbishop. Sam was unconvincing enough that CJ knew it for an excuse. They were staying because they were all in waiting. Waiting for the investigation of Donovan to be over so that they might take him with them.  
  
And Sam didn't want to tell her that, because apparently Sam thought that she couldn't handle it. And it disturbed her that maybe he was right about that.  
  
She'd walked a long way. Sam had a lot of time to babble.  
  
Finally, one word from Toby, placed somewhere in a Sam-run-on-sentence-to- end-all-run-on-sentences that CJ had little doubt Sam could have comma-ed and semicolon-ed into correct grammar somehow.  
  
"Sam."  
  
And they had silence again.  
  
She didn't like how they were flanking her. It made her feel.well it made her feel protected and that brought her dangerously close to remembering what it had been like to be near Simon, and that was sketchy territory just now.  
  
She was used to walking alone. She didn't want any of them to walk beside her. But maybe she'd needed Donovan to walk beside her before, and maybe she needed Sam and Toby to walk beside her now. She didn't know, and it was really an unimportant point because Donovan had never backed down, and Toby was there and he didn't look like he was inclined to be anywhere else. Neither did Sam.  
  
Especially as they approached the hotel they were passing a few hours in and she saw that most of the press corps was milling outside, and that they'd all caught sight of her before she noticed them.  
  
Instantly, she fell back into some sort of default professionalism, assumed auto pilot and for the first time since she'd left the theater became aware that she was soaked through from the intermittent rain and that she was shivering with cold and probably something else too.  
  
And she didn't want them to see her like this. Not these people she still battled with on a daily basis after spending four years trying--with varying degrees of success--to win their respect. Not these people who from time to time sensed a moment when she let her guard down and seized upon her from every direction. Not these people who had sharp eyes and sharper hunches and who shouldn't, couldn't assume what they were going to somewhat correctly assume in moments when they got a look at her tear-reddened eyes and her invalid-like entrance.  
  
"I need," she mumbled these first words to Toby and tugged at her arm which was instantly and effortlessly released as she pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin up. She lengthened her stride, but he did the same, not about to let himself be outpaced.  
  
Somewhere she could still hear the buzzing of the neon sign that had hung over her bench. She thought maybe it had never been the sign she'd been hearing at all.  
  
If it wasn't the entire press corps there under the canopy of the hotel, it was damn near to it. They silenced as she drew near, and formed in a solid line, overlapping at the elbows, jostling a bit to get their microphones, cameras, or pens into a good position to record this event: their press secretary was unglued and bedraggled and red-eyed. Grieving for the loss of the Secret Service Agent that had protected her.  
  
It was human interest, it was sexy. It was Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in Bodyguard. And the feminist groups that CJ mostly supported would shriek about that in response, but CJ didn't think that she cared. Let the press portray Donovan as a hero, as her protector.he had been that. And maybe he'd been more than that too, but not as much as she'd wanted him to be.  
  
She hated them, she thought. Right now, in this moment, she hated them all for being there. She hated Chris and Scott and Katie and all of them who were standing there, staring at her, already writing their nut graphs in their heads for tomorrow.  
  
They'd be poetic. God yes. There would be photos of her and Simon from Washington, photos of Simon getting off Air Force One directly ahead of her. There would be pictures of her as she was now, soaked through, with her mascara somewhere near her jaw and her hair plastered to her forehead and neck. Haunted. Alone.  
  
And she hated it.  
  
She was trying. She really was. She was six feet tall and she was a commanding presence. She was comfortable in her own frame. More so lately because Simon had still stood taller, but her height was a great advantage most times and this was one of them. She just had to put her head up and walk like she owned them, and they might be fooled.  
  
Damn the New York Times photographer. She saw his camera come up to cover his eyes, thus making her glare into them less poignant. She knew that tomorrow she might make the front page. In fact, it was likely.  
  
She knew what the press would and wouldn't write about, because that was her job. And writing about -this- was theirs.  
  
But she still didn't forgive them the intrusion, no matter how resigned she was to it. Let them have their pictures then.  
  
She could have turned her head, or even put Toby's coat over her face altogether and let him lead her into the hotel. But why? Because she was ashamed to have them see her cry? She wasn't crying right now. She didn't think she was about to start again. And if she did, how could they fault her for that?  
  
She looked like hell, but she wasn't a vain woman. Or maybe she was a little bit, but certainly not right now.  
  
And even if she did hide her face, or had done so before they'd seen her, there weren't many gargantuan women who walked around with Toby Ziegler and Sam Seaborn. The press could pretty confidently assume it was her. And how much worse would the stories be that went with the picture of a CJ Cregg too distraught to uncover her face?  
  
She saw the New York Times' photographer adjust his lens. The others seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what, she wondered. Waiting until they could see her tear tracks? Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes someone had once said to someone else. The President could have told her who said it, when, and why. She didn't care.  
  
Still the sight of the lens pointed at her unsettled her, and she wasn't sure why it did. She was photographed tens of times a day. But Joseph Perry's camera made her stop in her tracks and simply stare back.  
  
She could see a ghostly reflection of herself in the lens, even from a distance. He was doing a full body shot so everyone could see just how soaked she was after her conspicuous disappearance. Could see just how far her shoulders were cowed, despite her attempts at good posture as her boss dragged her back to them.  
  
How unfair that he was trying to share this moment with the entire world. What right did he have to do that to her?  
  
She continued to stand still, Toby and Sam having stopped about a half foot in front of her, to either side. They seemed to be swelling with anger as they glared at Joseph Perry too, their shoulders rising and heads lowering, as if they might charge the guy. She couldn't help but stare directly at the camera, waiting for it to start what would pretty soon look like a Paparazzi shoot. She hoped that she seethed with indignant anger, but she had a feeling she just looked confused and wounded.  
  
Then something rather miraculous happened. The camera lowered and bit by bit Joseph Perry's uncertain face appeared, as if he was reluctant to capture permanently whatever it was he'd just seen through his view.  
  
She probably should have felt relieved or grateful, but she was just tired. Tired and maybe more sad than she'd ever been before.  
  
The other reporters paused. Slowly, they all dropped their instruments for recording this historic event and drifted apart a little, relaxing their attack formation. She let out a deep breath she was surprised to realize she'd been holding. She wasn't sure why they'd changed their minds, whether it was some decision of conscience or the fierce look on Toby Ziegler's face, but they apparently decided to give her the moment. She had no doubt they'd write their stories, but they'd do it without the visual proof of their innuendoes.  
  
And in the midst of everything else, she thought that she loved them a little bit right then. Toby took her elbow again and pulled her along more quickly, as if he was afraid they might change their minds.  
  
However, in the press' weakening line, a new face appeared. A young woman CJ hadn't seen before was holding a camera. CJ knew she wasn't one of theirs and yet, the quality of the camera she held paired with some eye for the kind of people she worked with, told her that this young lady was a reporter from somewhere.  
  
And had no scruples about taking whatever pictures of the White House press secretary she could get. They were nearly upon the new face when the girl raised her camera. Toby lengthened his stride and CJ followed, averting her face unconsciously from her would-be photographer.  
  
And in the moment before the shutter clicked something even more extraordinary than her reporters' moment of humanity occurred. Gentle, idealistic Sam Seaborn, who would never dream of doing one thing to stand in the way of freedom of the press, took two long steps and covered the lens of the camera with a death grip, giving the photographer an excellent picture of the palm of his hand.  
  
"No!" Sam thundered, which surprised CJ a little, and apparently everyone around her because who knew Sam could thunder at all, and when the photographer tried to yank the camera back to get another shot, maintained his hold. "Go," he said to Toby, who did, and before CJ knew what had happened she was in the glassy silence of a revolving door compartment with Toby. Sam was left somewhere behind her, wrestling with a woman and giving her reporters something almost as interesting to photograph as herself.  
  
CJ concentrated on not trodding upon Toby in the small space of the revolving door. The complete silence made her feel as if she'd been plunged underwater.  
  
When they burst into the dazzling blaze of the hotel lobby, she blinked and squinted and realized that it wasn't really brilliantly lit after all. In fact, the lobby had sort of a pleasant candle-lit glow achieved with dim, sleepy lighting. Her eyes were just exhausted.  
  
The beams filtered from chandeliers through the raindrops and tears on her lashes and misty halos surrounded every marble and gold-plated surface she saw.  
  
She was still following Toby blindly, as if she would never find her way without him. She honestly couldn't think of what else to do.  
  
When he paused in the hallway before the elevators, she did too. From one of the overstuffed chairs there, Charlie Young rose slowly, his eyes fixing on CJ in an outright stare until Toby moved between them. Toby conversed with Charlie in low tones, and CJ noticed that the younger man kept glancing at her with concern around Toby's shoulder.  
  
"We've got the whole 48th floor. Here's CJ's key," he said. "Is she okay?"  
  
"CJ is right here. I can take my own key," she snapped, and was surprised at how sharp her voice was.  
  
Charlie said "okay then" and handed the card to her.  
  
In a moment of grand independence she moved past them both and pushed the "up" button herself.  
  
Charlie moved to her side, pausing and seeming to hesitate forever, as if gathering his courage to say, "CJ, I'm sorry."  
  
Her throat tightened so that all she could say was, "yeah. Okay."  
  
"The President wanted to know when she got back in. I'll tell him she's back safe." Charlie told Toby, and left them.  
  
CJ closed her eyes and pushed the air out through her nose. The leader of the free world was supposed to have more important things on his mind than whether his press secretary was demented and loose on the streets of New York. She wondered briefly if the meeting with Ritchie had happened and if there was any situation she was going to need to handle at her next briefing. Nothing put Jed Bartlet in a worse mood than senseless death and violence. She imagined that Ritchie would try his patience on a good day, and then she imagined that there was no such thing as a good day where President Bartlet and Governor Ritchie met.  
  
Some internal alarm she'd developed gave her a start and she glanced down at her watch. She was an hour late for her briefing. It occurred to her for the first time in a while that she was actually sort of responsible for that sort of thing around there.  
  
"I." she said but Toby was already shaking his head and replying, "we'll get somebody else."  
  
"No!" She said with strength she was proud of. She was coming back into herself slowly. She had to share the space with a gnawing emptiness, but her mind was wrapping all the way around thoughts now. And those thoughts could crowd out the ones she didn't want to have. She needed the briefing. She needed something familiar. Maybe then she wouldn't feel like such a complete stranger to herself. Even if she had to talk about Simon, she could do so in a professional manner. God willing. "Toby, no. I'm not passing it off."  
  
"Okay, so wait then. They'll wait. You gonna go up there like this?"  
  
He was a logical man, was Toby Ziegler. She shook her head and glanced up to see the elevator was almost to the lobby floor. There was a cheerful ding, and then the doors rolled open.  
  
They stepped aside as people from the upper floors stepped out, most of them throwing curious looks at CJ. She didn't know if it was because they were trying to place her or because she just looked like total hell, or both. She was thankful no one seemed interested in speaking to her.  
  
Without looking at Toby, she told him, "you've got things, I'm sure. I'm okay."  
  
"Are you?" he asked, leveling a gaze at her that she wouldn't return.  
  
"Yeah. Go."  
  
"I don't think I will," he said and stepped on the elevator before her.  
  
She stood there and looked at him a minute, a little irritated but more appreciative that he wasn't leaving her just yet.  
  
"You coming?" he asked, slamming his hand against the closing elevator door and pushing it back when she just stared.  
  
Supposing she had no other option, she did.  
  
The walls of the elevators were mirrored. She stepped forward, caught sight of herself and was nearly shut in the door when she froze. Toby reached out, grabbed a wrist and pulled her the rest of the way in.  
  
Though her inclination was to do anything but confront herself, she approached her reflection cautiously, as if it might skitter away at a sudden movement. Her hands were still trembling when she brought her fingertips to touch her fingertips in the glass and met her eyes there.  
  
How old was she?  
  
Something came to mind. After Rosslyn, they'd played the tapes of her briefings over and over. For days. Inevitably, she'd come across the recording one day at home, although she'd been trying to avoid it. All of them had. They'd been keeping their heads down for eleven days when she'd finally faced it.  
  
She'd sat down on the edge of her coffee table, hands clasped between her knees, and she'd stared at herself. And relived that horrible night. Felt her hand came to her throat again to feel for the lost necklace that had been returned by Sam and had by then rested comfortingly against her collarbone. She'd been transfixed. Just as she was by her reflection now. And then, like now, she'd noticed how very old she looked.  
  
She wondered if she could do this anymore. She was tired of people trying to kill the people she worked with and cared about, and her, for trying to serve them. She loved what it was they were doing, and trying to do, but she was starting to think the price was too high. Too damn high.  
  
"Why do we keep doing this Toby?" She said quietly, and that seemed to startle him and he half-turned and met her eyes in the mirror.  
  
Again he struggled through the words he had, and failed to come up with the right ones, which was surprising because his gift with words was becoming legendary in their White House. She waited expectantly, hoping he could somehow clarify her purpose. Because if she hadn't been the face of the Bartlet administration, there never would have been a stalker, and she would have never met Simon Donovan or any secret service agent, and she wouldn't need to have this conversation. And that seemed to take precedence over any platform they were pushing.  
  
"CJ," Toby began, his tone gentle but not without a note of aggravation. Toby didn't like questions he couldn't answer. And he didn't like it that the job of comforting her had fallen on his shoulders. He didn't want to fail her. It hurt him to see her like this, and she knew that, and that meant something, but she didn't know how to tell him that.  
  
"Never mind," she said and looked back to her own reflection.  
  
They continued upwards. Somewhere around the 15th floor her phone began ringing again. She stared at her small evening bag, hanging on her elbow. The phone kept ringing inside, and she probably looked like she had not the slightest idea how to get to it.  
  
The truth was, she had no desire to talk to anyone. Not when she was so recently back under some control. The only people who had her number were her family and the people she worked with, and it was too much to talk to them now. Because if she heard her older brother or Josh Lyman's voice on the phone she would be four years old again.  
  
Toby reached over and took the purse by the strap and pulled. CJ's arm went straight as he slipped it past her hand. She watched as he deftly unlatched the clasp on the tiny bag and found her phone, hooking her bag unconsciously around his own wrist as he pressed the button to answer the call.  
  
"CJ Cregg," he said as CJ stood there and watched him look rather natural holding her purse. Of course he would have done it before. For his wife. Although he still wore a wedding ring, CJ sometimes forgot that he'd been married.  
  
"Very good Josh. You're right, I'm not CJ.no, you can't talk to her.because you can't. Yes she's right here.what do mean 'where?' What do you think right here means? She's in the elevator. With me.I don't know. Josh, no."  
  
Toby was silent for a few minutes and cast a glare at CJ that had nothing to do with her. CJ could hear Josh's climbing voice as Toby cringed and held the phone away from his ear for a few seconds. The door opened and admitted an older couple on the 21st floor and CJ and Toby moved together to the back of the elevator.  
  
"Josh. She's right here. No, she wasn't there.didn't they tell you? She no, then no, she wasn't there. She was at the theater. You know that. Yes.no, he's outside.well, physically denying a young woman her first amendment rights, last I saw."  
  
The couple cast a strange look at Toby who didn't notice them at all, and they exited on the 27th.  
  
"I'm hanging up now, Josh. No. I will not. Josh.no you do not outrank me. - Goodbye- Josh."  
  
Toby pulled the phone away from his ear and searched the tiny buttons for the one that would stop the voice screeching "-you don't get to tell me that I can't talk to her.are you there? Son of a bitch! You're seriously hanging up on me? Toby, you can't--"  
  
The elevator bumped gently and then stopped on 48.  
  
"When you can, you should call him. He's worried about you. And pissed at me now, apparently." Toby said as the door peeled back and as he slipped the phone into her purse and closed it. He made no move to give it back to her, but motioned for her to step out of the elevator before him.  
  
The 48th floor was deserted, and CJ was glad of it.  
  
"Carol sent someone to get your clothes and things from Air Force One."  
  
"Okay," CJ said as Toby paused in front of a door. He turned and watched her expectantly and she stared back. "What?" she asked defensively.  
  
"You have the key."  
  
CJ looked down and saw that indeed, the key card she'd taken from Charlie was still clutched in her fingers. In fact, her knuckles were wrapped so tightly around it that they'd turned pale. "Yeah," she said and he moved to the side so that she could open her door.  
  
On a good day, she had trouble with these damn cards. She wondered what had happened to good old keys and locksmiths and such. Her hands were still shaking. She hated it when her hands shook when she was nervous. It had been worse when she was younger. Her voice could ring with authority and certainty, her face be impassive, but her hands would be trembling so violently that she couldn't hold a pen. Now, she was in much the same place. She was embarrassed by it. For most of her early years, people had commented on it.  
  
But not Toby. He simply reached to cover her fumbling hands with his own to still her efforts. His own hand was warm and strong, and for a moment, he just squeezed. When she looked at him, he instantly looked away, and still keeping hold of her hand with his, opened the door easily with his other.  
  
He released her and moved so that she could enter the room, which she did, but stopped so short over the threshold that he nearly plowed into her shoulder blades.  
  
She wasn't sure why the sight of the bed, turned down already by housekeeping, with two mints on the pillows, struck her like it did. But she stood there and knew with every instinct that she had that if Simon were alive, they both would have ended up here or somewhere like it and something very special would have happened.  
  
And she felt so lonely right then, felt like it had been so long since a man had touched her with desire that she ached with it. Her skin felt too thin and ticklish, and she thought that if anyone touched her, however lightly, she would have cried out with the relief of it.  
  
She couldn't step further into the room. Toby squeezed in and closed the door.  
  
"I can't.he can't be." she whispered and her eyes felt hot and though she thought she wouldn't cry again, tears began scorching down her cheeks. She made a tent of her hands and covered her nose and mouth and felt the tears rushing along the sides of her index fingers.  
  
"CJ," Toby murmured, dismayed.  
  
And then Toby did something she didn't think he'd ever done before. He stepped in front of her and enfolded her in an embrace, trapping her own arms inside of his.  
  
On a day when she was feeling generous, she would have said that she had a good inch on Toby's height. But something about his touch was so encompassing that she felt small and vulnerable. She felt as if he was the only thing holding her to her feet, and she clung to him.  
  
"I can't," she said again, and didn't know what she couldn't. She couldn't handle this? Because she could. She couldn't show her grief in front of him? Because she was.  
  
"Yeah," he said, and patted her back and brought one hand up to stroke her still wet hair and cradle her neck.  
  
Something about his reassuring touch broke her into 10,000 pieces, and she removed her hands from her face and curled them instead into the front of his tuxedo. She lowered her face into his shoulder. He smelled like cigar smoke and soap and rain and man, and that warm combination both soothed her and broke her heart further.  
  
He never said anything. He was just there. And CJ was a little surprised to learn, maybe for the first time, that Toby Ziegler's true eloquence was not in his words but in his heart.  
  
Still, she wouldn't give herself over completely, and even as her tears had started, she was in the process of controlling them. She straightened and picked her head up, and looked at Toby.  
  
He studied her, his dark eyes warm with both serenity and understanding.  
  
He brought his hands up to her cheeks, sweeping tears away with his thumbs and then with gentle pressure bowed her head so that he could kiss her gently on her forehead. He sighed. A soft sigh, not one of his huffs of air that meant he was perturbed, which was most of the time. "This too shall pass," he whispered and let her go.  
  
"I don't want to be here," she responded. Where she didn't want to be wasn't clear, to her or to him. In the hotel room? In New York? In the Administration? In the place in her life where she had lost someone she cared about?  
  
Toby did the best he could with that information and she followed him from the room and down the narrow hallway of closed doors. At the end of the hallway was a sitting room of sorts with a window wall that looked out over the city. She walked to the glass and tried to avoid the pale oval in it that was her face. Instead, she stood close and looked down on the taillights of Taxis and neon signs of Broadway below her, and realized she felt no more removed from the street now than when she'd been sitting on her bench.  
  
A police car went by, the bright blue lights flashing. She thought about Joseph Perry again.  
  
"I'm doing my own briefing, Toby."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"I'm just saying that I'm going to do it. It's my job."  
  
"Yeah. I'm saying okay."  
  
She paused then wondered, "you already had someone else do it didn't you?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Who?" She turned away from the window and looked at him.  
  
"Don't worry about it."  
  
"Toby, who?" She was glad to hear a touch of steel in her voice, and saw from his expression that he was too.  
  
"Sam's doing it." He glanced at his watch. "Now."  
  
"Do you remember what happened the last time someone else did my briefing?"  
  
"I believe we developed a secret plan to fight inflation. Very productive day."  
  
She groaned and then said, "whatever. Fine. I told you so, in advance."  
  
"It'll be fine."  
  
"After the whole thing with that reporter?" CJ reminded him.  
  
"We'd decided it before the thing. Maybe they won't mess with him."  
  
"Yeah, they'll be terrified of Sam Seaborn," CJ said and there was enough sarcasm in her voice to make them both smile a little.  
  
"I don't think I'll forget seeing him fight with that woman." Toby's teeth appeared through his beard as his smile lengthened.  
  
She turned back to Broadway. "My money was on her, but remind me to thank Sam for it sometime."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Remind me to thank you sometime too," she said over her shoulder.  
  
"I will. Probably the next time Qumar comes up."  
  
"I think we can both agree that it's not likely to help you."  
  
"I think we can." He sighed again, and in the glass she saw that he was still standing behind her, smiling. He shook his head a little, in amusement and in admiration, because he didn't know she was watching him. He caught her eyes in the window, and was a little startled to be caught. Clearing his throat, he gestured around the room, "why don't you sit down? It was a long walk."  
  
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that."  
  
Abashed, he clarified, "I wasn't.complaining. Or scolding."  
  
"I know." She turned away from the window. There was an armchair near it and she folded herself into it gratefully, noting the ache in her calves, feet, and lower back for the first time. He chose the sofa across the coffee table from her and sighed with relief as he sat down.  
  
"Want something to drink?" He said, gesturing to the phone on the end table at his elbow. "We can do room service."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"What'll you have?"  
  
"Diet Coke."  
  
"Okay." He picked up the phone, waited and then said, "I need room service. Yes, on the 48th. Two Jack Daniels. Neat."  
  
"Or whiskey will do," CJ murmured as Toby finished up on the phone. He ignored her, and tilted his head back into the sofa, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
  
"So they caught the guy? The stalker?"  
  
"That's what he said," CJ answered, unable to bring herself to say Simon's name just yet. She didn't really want to be anywhere near this topic, but she'd indulge Toby for a bit.  
  
"They're sure it's him."  
  
"Yeah, I guess so. I haven't been briefed. I don't know anything about it."  
  
"Who was he?"  
  
"You're starting to remind me of my reporters."  
  
"Okay, so when you say you don't know anything about him, that includes who he is?"  
  
"Quick aren't you?"  
  
He ignored her like he usually did and didn't pick his head up. "That's good news. We didn't want to say much, but we were afraid for you."  
  
"We?"  
  
"We. Sam, me. Josh. Leo. The President. We."  
  
"I had." she paused, then forced herself to say it. "I had Simon."  
  
"Still, it has to be a relief to know that they got him."  
  
She supposed. She hadn't really thought about it. So soon after Simon had told her they had her stalker, she'd kissed him, which had occupied her mind through the first several Henrys. Then Ron had come to pull her out, and since then she hadn't thought of anything but how Simon was dead and how he shouldn't be. If fact, she should be having whiskey with him, not Toby, right now.  
  
The Jack Daniels arrived.  
  
"To Agent Sunshine," she said softly and raised her glass, "-Special- Agent Sunshine." Toby looked disapproving of her bitter, self-mocking tone, but silently raised his glass as well.  
  
She really didn't care for whiskey at all. She was more of a beer or wine girl, herself. Maybe an occasional screwdriver, a cosmopolitan. A margarita. Hell yes.  
  
She took an experimental sip, and didn't die, so she took a large swallow. Instantly tears stung her eyes and thousands of needles prickled along the inside of her nose. With effort, she swallowed, shivering convulsively as she did so.  
  
But the whiskey scorched away the chill, blazing a heated trial down to the pit of her stomach, eating away at the aching tension at the base of her throat. She took another swallow, shivered a little less violently  
  
They drank quickly and ordered two more.  
  
Her head started to feel too heavy, her knees further away. Somewhere near the end of her third whiskey, Leo walked in the room, hands shoved in his pockets. He hadn't even loosened his tie yet.  
  
CJ felt her spine stiffen and the warmth that had been spreading in her stomach gave back over to the ice. The last thing she wanted Leo McGarry, a recovering alcoholic, to walk in on, was her drowning her sorrows. Toby seemed nonplussed though, and so did Leo. His gaze lingered on her glass, then returned to her flushed face.  
  
Her relationship with Leo was touch and go of late. They both held the other in high regard, but there wasn't a mutual love there, and sometimes there was barely a liking. When they agreed, which wasn't too terribly often, things were better, but it was never easy between them any more. The silence now was indicative of that, completely different from the long minutes of quiet she shared with Toby.  
  
"How you doing, CJ?"  
  
"She's okay," Toby answered quickly.  
  
"She's right there," Leo reminded Toby and looked to CJ.  
  
"I'm okay," she confirmed. "How did Sam do?"  
  
"Sam did fine, but he's not you. They beat him up a little. One of them accused him of.never mind, it's not important. We had somebody from the Secret Service answering questions too."  
  
"Are they releasing his name yet?"  
  
"Not yet, but they will soon. He had two sisters. And his mother is in Illinois. I think they've all been contacted now."  
  
CJ closed her eyes, and didn't think she could open them again. She thought her brain had maybe turned to whiskey, sloshing around between her ears and rolling in unsettling waves up against her forehead. "And he had Anthony. Did anyone tell Anthony?"  
  
"Anthony?" Leo and Toby asked together.  
  
"His little brother. Not his real little brother.you know, the program. I met him this morning.was it this morning? It's been a long day. I don't know how to get in touch with him. He'll be.he had a bad feeling about Simon coming to New York. I overheard them."  
  
"You should get some rest. Both of you. We'll call you when we're ready to go. It'll be a couple of hours at least. The rooms are covered."  
  
"I'm fine here," CJ said.  
  
"Don't you need to dry off or something? You'll get sick," Leo waved a hand at her dress and damply curling hair.  
  
"Carol sent for her clothes," Toby cut in.  
  
"In the mean time. A bathrobe or something maybe? They have them in the rooms.I can have your key sent up."  
  
"I'm fine here," CJ repeated, a little sharply.  
  
Leo shrugged and took no offense. "Okay. I'm going downstairs. The President met with the Archbishop for a while. He's done now."  
  
"The meeting with Ritchie?" Toby asked Leo's already retreating back.  
  
"About like you'd expect," Leo said. "November's getting further off all the time." He turned and looked at both of them. "Really, try to rest."  
  
"You should take your own advice Leo," Toby answered back, and Leo smiled a little and walked away, hands back in his pockets.  
  
They finished a fourth whiskey each and opted to not order another. Carol rushed into the room with the clothes CJ had planned to change into to fly home. Somehow the jeans and white button up shirt didn't seem appropriate for the occasion, but neither did the Vera Wang, and the former was dry and she was cold.  
  
She stood up to change and the room tilted steeply to the left. She thought that she might go sliding right out through the windows. It wasn't until she anchored herself to the back of her chair with both hands that things grew still. Well, still--er.  
  
"CJ?" Carol murmured, putting a hand out. "What--?"  
  
Toby gestured to the empty glasses on the table between them by way of explanation. "You can go Carol. Rest. Dry off yourself."  
  
Carol, clearly reluctant to leave CJ, glanced uncertainly at her. "Go," CJ agreed.  
  
When they were alone again, CJ looked dubiously at Toby and then released the chair and began making her way to the bathroom on the other side of the room. She made the mistake of glancing toward the window wall only once, and when the skyscrapers across the street leaned aggressively toward their building, didn't do so again.  
  
"Lightweight," she heard Toby mutter in mock contempt as she closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment.  
  
When she returned, Toby was still sitting on the couch, his ankles crossed on the coffee table and his eyes closed. She looked at the dark circles under his eyes, visible since Jed Bartlet took office, today more noticeable than most.  
  
"Why don't you go to your room? You look exhausted."  
  
Toby didn't open his eyes. In fact, he didn't really respond to her at all except to make a noise that indicated dismissal of her suggestion and to say, "I'll do."  
  
A muffled ringing sounded and Toby sat up and held out his arm; her small purse still dangled from it. He looked a little surprised to see it there still, and asked, "want me to get it?"  
  
CJ reached over the table and took the bag from him, glad to see that her hands had stopped their shaking as she retrieved the phone. Her caller id showed a call from the White House. Josh.  
  
"What." She said by way of greeting.  
  
She could tell that she threw him by answering the phone herself, could almost hear him swallowing the argument he'd constructed for Toby.  
  
Or maybe not. Maybe the pause was so he could translate it from the second person to the third, because he opened with, "he's wrong, you know. I really do outrank him. I'm the deputy chief of staff. He's the Communications director. The Communications department is part of the staff. The same staff I'm deputy chief of. Therefore, I technically outrank him."  
  
"Yeah, um, I don't care." The words were accompanied with a slur. "You tried to tell me that you outranked me too once. Without much success, if I remember. I think you have an inferiority complex."  
  
"I think you know that's not true," Josh answered and then grew silent for a few beats. "How you doing CJ?"  
  
"I'm, you know." -Drunk-, she thought to herself. Whatever else she was, she was that.  
  
"I thought.when they told me he'd been shot, I just figured it was, it had to do with, you know, the guy."  
  
"No, they got him."  
  
"You weren't hurt?"  
  
"No, Josh, I was in the theater. I wasn't there. I thought they told you."  
  
"Yeah, I know. I just thought.I don't know, I was just worried. I'm glad you're safe."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"And I'm sorry about Simon. He was a good guy."  
  
"Yeah," CJ responded, her voice as thick as Josh's. "He was."  
  
"Hey, I want to tell you something. I don't know if I should tell you, and Donna says I shouldn't." CJ heard another voice in the background, a voice that was putting up a strong objection to something.  
  
"Donna's there?"  
  
"Yeah, I came back to the office when I heard. She was still here, waiting on the vote when she heard. We got it, by the way."  
  
"I heard we were gonna. What shouldn't you tell me? Donna's probably right. You should listen to her more often."  
  
"Yeah, but you want to hear it anyway?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"I just thought maybe it would give you some, I don't know, comfort, to know that when I got shot.it didn't hurt. I didn't feel it really. I didn't know."  
  
CJ's throat tightened against whatever words she was going to say. She hadn't expected this. Josh very, very rarely spoke of the night he'd been shot. And she thought she could understand the effort that talking about it cost him.  
  
"You still there, CJ?"  
  
She nodded, realized he couldn't see her, and then managed, "yeah."  
  
"Well, it's the truth."  
  
"You're a damn liar, Joshua Lyman. I was there, remember? I saw you. I had your blood on my hands, you ass."  
  
"Yeah, but Simon.it was quick. At first, you don't feel anything. It's later that it hurts. Okay? He didn't suffer."  
  
"Christ, Josh, he wasn't a dog! -He didn't suffer-? Donna was right."  
  
"I'm just saying, CJ."  
  
"Yeah. I'm gonna go now, Josh. I'll see you in the morning."  
  
"Yeah, okay. Hey. You been drinking?"  
  
"Heavily."  
  
"Okay then." There was hesitation and then Josh's voice again, "CJ?"  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
"I am really glad you're safe. And I'm sorry too."  
  
"Okay."  
  
She hung up the phone and looked over to Toby, expecting to find him dozing again, but his eyes were open and on her.  
  
She sighed and they watched each other for a while longer and then she announced, "I don't think there is a better group of men anywhere in the world than you guys."  
  
"You call us 'smartasses' on a regular basis," Toby accused.  
  
"Yeah, but you're -my- smartasses."  
  
"We are that," Toby agreed.  
  
They went back to quiet. CJ's eyes were watering, more from pure exhaustion than from anything else. She closed them tightly and thought that she could feel the bloodshot vessels in them scratching against her lids.  
  
She was so tired. So tired that she didn't think she had one word left in her. In a few minutes, she leaned forward in her chair, rested her elbows on her thighs and dropped her forehead into her opened palms.  
  
The only sound in the room was the hum of the heating system and an occasional scuffle of fabric on fabric as Toby shifted. CJ concentrated hard on those tiny sounds, on breathing in and out, and tried to keep everything else out of her mind. The whiskey helped with that. Trust Toby to know what was best.  
  
She might have dozed, or she might not have. It might have been an hour or five minutes when the atmosphere of the room seemed to change immensely, and yet there had been no sound to mark the difference.  
  
A light hand rested on the crown of her head.  
  
Startled out of whatever state she'd been in, she threw her head back and blinked. In front of her was President Bartlet.  
  
Toby was standing, and beside her, so was Sam. She hadn't heard Sam come into the room at all, but he looked like he'd been there awhile, in the arm chair next to hers, jacket thrown on the table, sleeves rolled up, tie hanging open. Leo was standing in the doorway.  
  
"Mr. President, excuse me," she mumbled in confusion and made clumsy efforts to rise.  
  
The President put a firm hand on her shoulder. "Sit," he told her, "Fatherly advice is best dispensed from on high. Not up your nose. I like tall women. But for now you sit. I'll stand."  
  
"Yes sir," she murmured and glanced around the room.  
  
The agents had entered the room first. They always did. Now, they stood in front of the windows, a barricade of human flesh and heart, ready to stop any bullet fired from one of the buildings across the street.  
  
She endangered them just by being here, she thought. Just as she'd endangered Donovan, just by being anywhere she was. How could they still be here at all, she wondered. How could they do their job knowing that they'd just lost one of their own? And how could they stand there and not hate her for it?  
  
The President was watching her, and she had the unsettling feeling that he was reading her thoughts.  
  
"This is not your fault, you know," he said. "These men and women.these extraordinary people," he waved a hand at his bodyguards, and they continued their observation of their surroundings as if he wasn't speaking about them at all. "They aren't made from the same stuff as you and me, CJ. They're more than blood and bone and muscle. I don't think we can understand it. But I can tell you this. If one of them stepped in front of a bullet meant for me, he wouldn't hold it against me. And he wouldn't want his family to. Would that ever make sense to you in a hundred years?"  
  
"No sir."  
  
"But you know what?"  
  
"What, Mr. President?"  
  
"Simon Donovan wouldn't have held it against you if he'd had to step in front of a bullet for you."  
  
"He didn't step in front of a bullet for me. He did his job so well that he didn't need to. And he should have been safe."  
  
"We should all be safe, CJ."  
  
"He was there because of me."  
  
"Are you going to blame the woe of the world on yourself now?"  
  
CJ glanced up at a man that was greater than any she'd ever known, a man she served at the pleasure of, and she admitted a little sheepishly, "only North America."  
  
"Well, by God, you have a high opinion of yourself, Claudia Jean. Now, I, on the other hand am important enough to blame for North America, at least."  
  
"Congress does it every day," Sam put in helpfully.  
  
"You be quiet. I'm pretty sure you're going to be sued for something tomorrow," The President ordered, pointing a finger at Sam, who grinned and shrugged.  
  
CJ didn't smile again. "He never would have been in New York. Tonight. If not for me."  
  
"You don't know that."  
  
"Yes, I do, Mr. President. He wouldn't have been in New York."  
  
"You don't get to decide that, CJ. I don't get to decide that. The Archbishop doesn't get to decide that. You don't know where he would have been if not for you, and you don't know why. And if you're gonna blame yourself for the acts of madmen, CJ.well, you're going to be one of them. At the very least, you're going to let them win."  
  
Unconvinced, CJ sighed and met his eyes again. "He was my bodyguard. He was here for me."  
  
"And I convinced you to allow him to be there. And I'd do it again. And I will not take responsibility for a gunman in a newsstand! 'boy, crime, I don't know'.-my ass-!" he ended abruptly, having just realized how far his voice had climbed.  
  
"Sir?" CJ asked in confusion.  
  
"Never mind. But I'm not to accept blame for that man's actions and neither are you. I'll go ahead and tell you, I am not going to allow it."  
  
"Would you really?" CJ asked. "Do it again? Order him to watch me?"  
  
"Yeah, and so would Agent Donovan."  
  
CJ thought maybe there was some truth to his words. The last time she'd seen him, Simon had told her he'd spent his life protecting people. He'd lived and died by his dedication to doing just that. Yeah, he would have done it again.  
  
It was she that wanted to do things differently. Maybe to tell him long before tonight what an amazing thing she thought it was that he did. Maybe to tell him what an amazing man she thought he was.  
  
The President watched her for a while. Then with a sigh, he touched her shoulder. "We're going home now, CJ."  
  
CJ started at the words. It was finished then. Wrapped up. They were going home. And they were going without Simon. It had never, not even for a second, occurred to her in the eternity ago that was their flight to New York that Simon might not be there on the way back.  
  
She didn't remember much about the ride to Air Force One, except that it was too cold in the limo and that she could see the green digital clock in the front of the car. 5:41. Then 5:42. She sat and watched the minutes roll by. Sam and Toby sat to either side of her, not saying anything, their heads bobbing sleepily to the rhythm of the road.  
  
They should have slept well tonight. They should have been allowed to celebrate first, and then rest knowing they'd won the day. They'd done brilliant work this evening and Ritchie had looked bad. His staff had looked bad. Sam had avenged himself for the video thing, and he wasn't nearly done yet.  
  
It was a beautiful thing when the minds of Sam Seaborn and Toby Ziegler joined forces for evil purposes. Tonight they'd gone to the dark side. They liked it there. This is what they did best. They had reason to celebrate.  
  
But they'd been with her all evening instead. Guard dogs, friends, Brothers. Fierce. Gentle. God, she loved them all. Her heart beat faster in sudden, inexplicable fear. She could lose them too.  
  
It was fast approaching dawn when they arrived at the airport. In spite of the miserably damp and cold morning, a crowd had gathered along rope lines. CJ watched their excited faces, trying to peer through the tinted windows, as they rolled slowly by in the limo. She thought that they must have been waiting for hours, since the President's scheduled time of departure. They were all sodden and wind burned in the coming daylight, but their enthusiasm was still fresh.  
  
They roared when Josiah Bartlet stepped from his car and waved at them, walking behind his Agents to the line and shaking hands, making jokes about the weather and the Yankee game with the people there, looking for all the world like he was as pleased to see each of them as they were to see him. And CJ knew that it was genuine.  
  
She climbed from the car and took a few steps away so that Sam and Toby could get out too, then stood transfixed by the scene. Men and women reaching over each other just to touch this man, this very special, charismatic man, whose generosity knew no bounds. This man who wanted to sign his own Christmas cards and this man who had touched her head lightly and with words had lifted the weight of North America from her and had placed it upon himself willingly.  
  
"That man and rope lines," Sam muttered, mostly to himself, and touched CJ on the small of her back, turning her toward the plane.  
  
She was somewhere around the middle of the stairway up to Air Force One, when the crowd's cheerful hum abruptly ceased, and the world beyond the engines went very still.  
  
Toby, who was behind her, suddenly crowded her, as if trying to hurry her into the plane. "Don't," he half-shouted over the engines when she started to turn, which she did anyway.  
  
And understood the crowd's stunned silence.  
  
She hadn't seen the black hearse at the end of the motorcade. She had probably known it was there, but she hadn't seen it, and not seeing it made it less real.  
  
Just like not seeing the coffin would have made it all less real.  
  
But she was out of luck, because six secret service agents were carrying the casket, shrouded in an American flag, with great care. They all marched in step, they all looked straight ahead. The standing water on the tarmac absorbed the image and give it back up to CJ's eyes, a wavering reflection of the casket moving above.  
  
There was not a sound from the crowd. They all were frozen, except for their eyes, which followed the solemn procession. In their faces, CJ saw everything she felt. Anger. Grief. Confusion. Disgust. Horror. Hate. Love.  
  
As Simon Donovan was carried past the President, he made the sign of the cross, touching fingertips to shoulders, forehead, chest. CJ felt a sob catch in her throat and realized she was crying again as she mirrored the President's gesture.  
  
She wasn't the only one. There were tears in that crowd, tears in the President's eyes.  
  
And when Toby spoke and she glanced at him for a moment, she saw that his own cheeks bore the trails of his sorrow.  
  
Ever so softly he whispered, "them. Those people down there. And the man they came to see tonight. That's why we're doing this."  
  
From below her, she was aware of flash bulbs. Some pointed at Simon's coffin. Some pointed up at her.  
  
They'd have their pictures after all. And those pictures would break the heart of the nation. A willowy woman, half-turned, frozen before Air Force one, staring forlornly at a downed hero, -her- hero, tears rolling freely down her face.  
  
And she would never be ashamed of those tears.  
  
There wasn't one other movement but that of the pall bearers. CJ watched as they passed below and then disappeared under the plane.  
  
Toby urged her with soft sounds onto Air Force One.  
  
They taxied into the sunrise, into the staggering brightness that seeped through gashes in the clouds. And they lifted off, propelled with the power of genius into the coming day. Below her, in the belly of Air Force One, was Simon. Who would never see the light of this day, or any other day, again.  
  
CJ settled into a seat away from the others and as they broke through the clouds, looked fully into the face of her first morning without him. 


End file.
